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Herbed Baking – Give Your Old Favorites a Fresh Twist

Herbs are an incredibly easy way to spruce up your everyday baking. “Everyday baking? Are you kidding me?” you might say. Okay, fair enough. Perhaps everyday baking is a bit ambitious, but the holidays are here and using fresh herbs is a wonderful way to change your menu without having to do hours of research. Modifying recipes with herbs is also a great way to freshen up your menu while avoiding those “Who knows how it will turn out?” and “Why did I choose the most stressful holiday of the year to test new recipes?” feelings.

Without a doubt, fresh herbs are always better than the packaged alternative because their flavors are more subtle and their essential oils are still intact. Most fresh herbs don’t hold much water (except perhaps for basil), so there is no need to modify your recipes. Adding new zest to your favorite recipes is really just a matter of choosing your favorite herbs, chopping a few teaspoons or tablespoons of those herbs, adding them to your dry ingredients, and away you go. When all is said and done, you may even decide that you’ll get more adventurous and add more herbs next time.

Here are some holiday herb suggestions:

For rolls, try some thyme and cheddar cheese. For one batch of rolls (or 12-18 rolls), add one tablespoon of thyme and one cup of medium or sharp cheddar cheese to your dough. (Basic bread recipes are below.)

For whole wheat breads, try some sage, pecan and cranberries. Make enough dough for two loaves of bread and add ¼ cup each of chopped pecans, dried cranberries and chopped sage.

For one batch or one dozen scones, add ½ tablespoon of sage and ½ cup of golden raisins. When baking with raisins, macerate your raisins in boiled water for about ten minutes before adding them to your mixture. Because the raisins will be wet, you can omit 1-2 tablespoons of liquid from your recipe.

Rosemary and currants are perfect additions for biscotti. For eighteen biscotti add ½ teaspoon of (finely chopped) rosemary and ½ cup of currants.

For those winter soups and stews, tarragon cornbread is a delicious companion. Bake the cornbread in muffin tins with a pinch of tarragon on top of each one. Tarragon cornbread looks lovely in a basket on your table.

Here are the basic recipes for rolls, whole wheat bread, biscotti, scones and cornbread. Use your imagination with herbs to work magic in these basics.

Rolls (Quick Baking)

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 T baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 stick cold unsalted butter cut into cubes
¾ c -1 c buttermilk

Preparation
Preheat oven to 425°F and lightly grease a baking sheet. Into a large bowl mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add cubed butter and mix with hands or fork until the mixture resembles a course meal, add buttermilk and mix until combined. At this stage add your cheddar and thyme or whatever other ingrediatns you wish. Transfer mixture to a lightly floured surface and knead a few times until a smooth dough is formed. Roll out dough to about a ½ inch thick and cut with cutters in whatever shape you want your rolls. Place on baking sheet, sprinkle with salt and herbs if you choose. Brush with melted butter. Bake for about 15-20 minutes or until golden brown in color.

Whole Wheat Breads

Ingredients
1 C lukewarm water
1 T active dry yeast (one packet)
1 C warm milk
2 T honey
1 T salt
1/2 stick unsalted melted butter
1 1/2 C whole wheat flour
1/2 C wholegrain flour of your choice (buckwheat, rye)
½ C oat bran
2 C white flour

Preparation
Grease two metal loaf pans
Preheat oven to 450°
Mix warm water and yeast in large bowl until yeast is dissolved. Add honey and mix well, set aside for two minutes. Stir in milk, butter ans salt. Add the whole wheat flour and stir until well mixed. Add the wholegrain flour and oat bran and stir until well mixed. Add the white flour ½ cup at a time until a moist sticky ball of dough is formed, mixing as you add each ½ c of flour. Mix in cranberries, pecans and sage. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let dough rise about one hour in a warm area until doubled in size.

Cut the dough in half and place each half in the pre-greased loaf pan. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit in warm area until dough is puffed up to top of the pan, about 1/2 an hour. Place in oven center and bake about forty-five minutes until top of bread is a deep brown color. (You can poke a stick into the center. It should come out clean when the bread is done.) Cool in pan for about ten to fifteen minutes before taking bread out to cool.

Scones (Traditional cream scones)

Ingredients
2 cups pastry flour, unbleached all-purpose flour works well too.
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 stick unsalted cold butter, cut into 1-inch cubes
3/4 cup heavy cream
2-3 T cream for brushing tops of scones

Preparation
Preheat the oven to 400°.
Using a food processor or an electric mixer, preferably with the paddle attachement, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and then mix. Add butter and pulse on and off until the mixture resembles fine cornmeal. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and add cream. Gently mix by hand until just combined. At this stage add ingredients like chopped rosemary and currants. On a lightly floured surface knead dough gently a few times unitl it shapes into a smooth ball, lighly roll out dough about an inch thick, cut out in circles or shapes of your choice, place on a lined baking sheet with parchment paper or greased baking sheet and brush tops with cream. Sprinkle sugar and herbs on top as an optional added bonus. Bake for 12-18 minutes until they are lightly browned and the tops are slightly cracked.

BISCOTTI

Ingredients 2 C all purpose flour
½ c sugar
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
3 beaten eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp orange zest
1 egg white beaten

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°
Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a mixing bowl. Make a whole in the center of the flour mixture and add eggs and zest and vanilla extract in the center of that whole. Gently blend together the mixture until dough is fully mixed. Add chopped rosemary and dried currants, mix well. Let stand for aobut five minutes and then knead on lightly floured surface four about 3-5 minutes. Roll flat to about an inch thick, brush eggwhite all over top, sprinkle with a bit of sugar and orange zest and chopped rosemary. Place on greased cookie sheet and bake for 20-35 minutes, remove from the oven and let cool about 2-3 minutes. Cut into biscotti size pieces and place back in oven and bake another fifteen minutes.

Happy baking. Happier Eating. Happiest Memories.